Tiger Woods and Steve Williams forged the most successful player/caddie relationship in the history of the game.
Williams began caddying for Woods in 1999 all the way through to 2011, and he was on the 49-year-old’s bag for 13 of his 15 major championships.
Their split was an acrimonious one, after the man from New Zealand asked Tiger if he could caddie for Adam Scott while his boss was out injured.
However, in spite of their split, Williams recently admitted he’d work with Woods again, if he were asked to do so.
The 61-year-old was blown away by the 15-time major champion on numerous occasions during the times they spent together on the golf courses.
Williams said Woods was the best player out of the rough he has ever seen.
Meanwhile, the New Zealander has also suggested in the past that no other golfer had a mind as strong as the 49-year-old did in his prime.
That said, Williams has also suggested that Woods really needed to lean on him at times.
The one putt which could have completely changed Tiger Woods’ career
Woods has always been known as one of the best at holing out from inside six feet.
However, he faced one putt 26 years ago which caused him some problems when it came down to reading his line.
That’s when his trusty caddie stepped in.
Williams shared a great story about something that happened while he was caddying for Woods at Medinah in the 1999 PGA Championship, when speaking on the Tee It Up Podcast.
“For every player that plays golf the hardest tournament to win, when they get to the process of winning major championships, is the second one.
“That is why there is so many great players who have only ever won one major. It is harder to win the second one than the first one.
“At the PGA Championship in Medinah in 1999, he had a five shot lead starting on the back-nine and he was crumbling a bit.
“He got to the par three 16th hole and had a six footer to save par. He said, ‘can you read the putt for me, I have got it outside the hole’. I said, ‘no, it’s inside the hole’. He said, ‘are you sure’? And I said, ‘absolutely’. He knocked it in and went on to win the tournament.
“That was the biggest moment for us because if he hadn’t won that tournament he would have gone into 2000 with all that pressure on him trying to win a second major.
“Now he won the second major, the floodgates just opened. From that point on for the next five years, you just can’t explain to somebody how he played week in and week out. He just went on and won four of them in a row. It was unbelievable.
“I believe his whole career would have been different if he had not have won that championship in 1999 and went into 2000 still searching for a second major, his whole demeanour changed. He was more relaxed and he just went on a tear.“
Steve Williams once named Tiger Woods’ three greatest ever golf shots
Who better to ask about Tiger than the man who had a front-row seat to his brilliance for 12 years.
Woods is well known for pulling off miraculous golf shots when he needed them the most.
When speaking on the Talk Birdie To Me Podcast back in August, Williams picked out three of Woods’ shots which he thinks were the best of his career.
He said: “The legendary shot from Tiger is hard to say. The one out of the bunker at Glen Abbey at the 2000 Canadian Open out of that bunker. Or the shot at Hazeltine out of the fairway bunker on the 18th hole on the Friday, one of those two shots. They were shots which could never be repeated. The chip in at Augusta was okay too.”
The 6-iron out of the bunker from 212 yards out in the Canadian Open in 2000 was truly sensational.
Meanwhile, the 3-iron he hit out of the fairway bunker at Hazeltine in the 2002 PGA Championship was even better.
Take a look here and judge for yourself:
However, his most famous shot may well be his chip-in for birdie on the 16th hole at Augusta National in 2005.
What made that shot even more special was just how much he needed it at the time. Had he not made it, he would have missed out on the play-off with Chris DiMarco and obviously would not have won his fourth Masters.
Woods has arguably given golf fans more joy than any other player throughout the sport’s history and Williams got to see most of his brilliance up close and personal.
Professional caddies have some life, don’t they?
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